


Desire & Despair

by JehanetteProuvaire



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: At The Barricade, M/M, but lots of other people die, but no one else is a major character I guess, i mean it's the barricade, they both live
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-18 00:16:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19965586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JehanetteProuvaire/pseuds/JehanetteProuvaire
Summary: At the barricade, Marius finds himself baffled by the idea that he might feel for his good friend the same thing he feels for Cosette. What does it mean? What does anything mean? Will he live long enough to find out?





	Desire & Despair

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aquatics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aquatics/gifts).



“Long live France! Long live the future!”

Then a gunshot.

Then nothing.

All around Marius was silence. Enjolras looked pale, almost stricken. Fire was blazing in his eyes, but if it weren’t for that -- if he so much as blinked -- he would have looked half-dead. Joly was shaking. Courfeyrac looked as though he might weep.

Marius turned away. He couldn’t bear to look at his friend like that. He couldn’t bear to look at anyone like that, but especially not Courfeyrac. He was a man who should always be laughing.

He couldn’t now. No one could. Jean Prouvaire was dead.

Enjolras whirled, rousing on the inspector they’d captured. HIs eyes were alight, his face pale as death, and his voice… His voice sent chills down Marius’s spine. He had never heard Enjolras sound so dangerous, though it didn’t surprise him that he could be. It likely didn’t surprise any of them.

“Your friends have just murdered you.”

The inspector -- Javert, that was his name -- glared up at Enjolras but said nothing. He didn’t even try to make a sound past the gag stopping his mouth.

He didn’t have to. The hatred in his eyes said enough.

For a moment, Marius thought Enjolras would shoot the inspector right then and there. It would only be right, wouldn’t it? A life for a life, even if it did make Marius’s stomach churn. It was right. It was just. Surely Javert had more cause to die than Jean Prouvaire had.

(Many would die before this was done, whether they had cause or not. Marius was beginning to wonder whether he had the stomach for it.)

But Enjolras turned and stalked away, leaving Javert to live and breathe another day.

He would die before this was through. Marius could feel it.

He had distracted himself by watching Javert, and before he knew it, Courfeyrac was at his side. Marius jumped, and his surprise almost brought a smile onto Courfeyrac’s face. It brought the shadow of one, anyway, and while it didn’t look quite right, it at least looked closer to what ought to be there.

That made things even worse. No one should have cause to smile now.

“So,” Courfeyrac said. There wasn’t anything more that could be said, really. There probably wasn’t even more that should be said.

But more would be said. Marius could feel it.

“So,” Courfeyrac said again, his voice lower now. It wasn’t so people would avoid hearing. It was because no voice could be raised with the pall that now lay over them. “Jean’s dead.”

Marius nodded dully. No matter how often it was said, no matter how often he thought it, the words still came as a shock.

“It should have been one of us. We need someone to write all our epitaphs.”

There it was again, that not-quite-smile. The urge to truly smile was there. Marius could see it. He could even feel it, tugging in his chest, but he didn’t trust it. It felt too close to hysteria, too close to madness.

Jean Prouvaire was dead. For the first time, Marius realized not all of them might make it out alive.

He turned to Courfeyrac, wanting to say something, but his friend’s attention was already elsewhere. Marius held his tongue and after a time, Courfeyrac moved off.

It was for the best. Marius hadn’t the faintest idea what he could have said.

* * *

That night was bad.

Many nights would be bad, on this cobbled-together barricade of tables and chairs, paving stones and overturned carriages. Marius could feel it. When you went to war against your own city, it couldn’t be any other way. Even before Jean Prouvaire had died, Marius had been aware of that, though it hadn’t come to him quite as strongly as that. It had been nothing more than a vague notion, almost an intuition, and he hadn’t been certain he could trust his intuition.

He wondered whether he ought to trust it now. He wondered whether Jean would be the only one of them to die.

He wondered whether any of them would make it out alive.

Marius looked among the other young men with him, and his thoughts went from the poet who would never right another word to the doctor who might never get over his cold and the man who might never return to work again. Joly and Feuilly had as much to lose as any of the rest of them. He had as much to lose as all the rest did.

And what of those who had the most to lose of all? He might not be in touch with his family any longer, and his grandfather might not care whether he lived or died, but the rest of them all had people who loved them. Combeferre had a sister. Feuilly had a wife. Joly and Lesgle had Musichetta.

And he had Cosette.

Cosette, who was bound for England and whom he might never see again even if he survived. Marius leaned his head back against a wall, closing his eyes. Perhaps he might as well die out here. Perhaps, in the last moments of his life, he would see her face one last time.

But when he opened his eyes, it was Courfeyrac’s face he saw. Maybe he was already too tired, but it wasn’t even startling. It was almost a relief to have his friend there beside him.

(It would have been a relief to have anyone familiar beside him. Still reeling from Jean Prouvaire’s death, the scents of blood and gunpowder heavy in the air, Marius needed a bit of comfort. They all did.)

“Are you all right?” Courfeyrac asked. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

Marius shook his head. “I don’t think I could sleep tonight.”

“You ought to try. We won’t fare too well if we’ve been awake all night.”

“We didn’t fare all that well today.”

Courfeyrac looked concerned. Worried. It was an expression Marius had never seen on his face before, and he wished there were some way he could smooth it away, make everything as it was supposed to be. He wanted to step back in time somehow, before all of this, before everything had gone wrong. He and Courfeyrac could be friendly again, and Courfeyrac could try introducing him to girls and Marius would avoid him (but never seriously, he had never been able to do that) and --

And Courfeyrac’s hand was atop his, resting there easily as though it belonged there. Maybe it was just his exhaustion, but Marius almost thought it did feel right. 

“Can’t get anything done with that attitude,” Courfeyrac said, and there was a hint of his old smile there, a hint of the self he ought to be.

For a moment, Marius wanted to lean forward, to rest his head against Courfeyrac’s shoulder, his body against Courfeyrac’s body, to see whether it felt just as right as their hands together. He was so tired, and that moment of contact felt so good, and surely if Courfeyrac felt otherwise he would have drawn back by now.

Marius pushed the thought away quickly. It was nonsense, of course. Surely everyone here felt the same way, or perhaps no one did, and he couldn’t be bothered to try understanding the conflict between the two thoughts.

Courfeyrac rose, then. “Marius, rest,” he said, and slipped away into the night.

Enjolras had said those words to him before, and though Marius had found himself incapable of sleep, there was something different in the way Courfeyrac said them, something beyond the order from a leader to his followers. It wasn’t just advice, either. It was a request, something that stretched even past what one friend might ask of another.

Marius lay down and managed to sleep, though his dreams were strange and unsettled, filled with fair-haired figures walking away from him. When he woke, it was not yet dawn, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep again.

* * *

Jean Prouvaire was dead. M. Mabeuf was dead. Éponine was dead.

God, _Éponine_ was dead.

Marius hadn’t thought she would have come to the barricade. He had thought she would be well away, safe, or as safe as she could be. She didn’t have any business here. She wouldn’t have any reason to come.

But clearly she had. She had come out of love for him, and he had been blind to it until the end.

How much else was there he hadn’t seen? How much was there he didn’t know?

Time passed in a blur. He couldn’t have said what came first or after. He knew they held off the soldiers on the other side of their barricade, he knew they were all still alive somehow (or most of them anyway, but still not enough), he knew the sun had risen and set and would rise again, and when he did he could only imagine the dawn would be red.

He didn’t know how much longer they could last.

But when Courfeyrac came to him early in the morning, before the sun had really come up but when there was just enough light to see by, everything fell into place. Marius was still half asleep, but perhaps that had helped somehow. He couldn’t have understood had he been awake. He couldn’t have understood had he been thinking clearly.

It was dawn, and Marius didn’t know the hour or the minute, but neither of those mattered. What mattered was that Courfeyrac had sat down next to him.

His friend looked paler than he had before. They all were, probably, but it was on Courfeyrac he noticed it first. He was pale, with shadows under his eyes, and something in Marius ached to look at him. They couldn’t die. Not out here. Not both of them.

But they could. All of them could. Marius felt even worse than before.

“You look like you haven’t slept a wink,” Courfeyrac said. He was trying again to smile, and it worked as well as it had before. “I thought I told you to rest. It won’t be good for your health if you keep this up, you know.”

He couldn’t smile back, but he felt he ought to at least try. He ought to at least want to try. Instead, he couldn’t pull his gaze from his friend’s face. He had seen him look this serious only once, at one of the meetings, and it had struck him then as well. Even Enjolras and his fervor couldn’t have affected him so strongly. Sitting near Enjolras when he felt something strongly was like sitting near the sun. It never ceased burning, and you were sure you either burn along with it or be consumed. Seeing Courfeyrac’s face that day had been like being struck by lightning. It would never happen again, and Marius had been burned forever from nothing more than being close to him.

He couldn’t tell what was on his friend’s face today, though. It was illegible. Fervor, but faded. Hope, but despairing. There was a shadow lurking in Courfeyrac’s eyes that Marius didn’t want to call death but could think of no other word for.

He must look much the same. That was why Courfeyrac had drawn so close to him. He had wanted to see his face clearly in the dim light. He had brought Marius into this mess and maybe felt a little responsible for him. He would want to make sure he got out alive.

Or perhaps there was another reason.

Marius leaned closer to Courfeyrac. He couldn’t have said where the impulse came from, or why he followed it, and as soon as he realized how close they were (close enough he could see bits of blue in Courfeyrac’s gray eyes, close enough he could tell exactly where those shadows beneath them ended), he drew back. “You should have gotten some rest too,” he said. “You look…”

Terrible. Worse than I feel. Half dead.

Marius couldn’t say any of those (especially not the last), so he fell silent, letting himself trail off. That was all right. It didn’t matter much. Whatever confused expression was on his face had to be invisible this early. Courfeyrac wouldn’t be able to see it. He certainly wouldn’t be able to understand it. How could he grasp what Marius himself couldn’t?

Courfeyrac looked away. “I know,” he said. “We all do.” He glanced to Marius again, and Marius felt a strange thrill run through him. It wasn’t like the lightning. This was something different, something strange, something he had never felt before.

As Courfeyrac started to rise, Marius realized he had felt it before, but only once. He had felt it when he picked up a handkerchief from the park and believed the initials UF to belong to the young woman in white he had seen sitting with her father. The shiver that went through every one of his veins then echoed in them now, and now that he recognized it, he knew it had begun in his heart.

“Courfeyrac,” he said, his voice hoarse and rasping.

Courfeyrac stopped and turned, his confusion giving Marius enough time to get to his feet. “What is --” he began, but he got no further before Marius kissed him.

It wasn’t at all like kissing Cosette. That had been sublime, almost like kissing an angel. This was awkward, sudden, and rushed. If he could have thought about it beforehand, Marius would have been more careful, would have tried to make it a kiss worth having.

If he could have thought about it beforehand, he might not have done it at all. No man in his right mind would kiss another man, on a barricade and about to die or not. Anyone might have seen them, and Marius could only imagine what their reaction might be.

Courfeyrac must have been imagining it as well, for he drew back, eyes wide and lips parted. Marius couldn’t think of anything at all to say, and he took a small step back, waiting for Courfeyrac to shove him away, for the surprise on his friend’s face to become disgust.

He didn’t. It didn’t. Courfeyrac did leave, but not so soon as Marius had expected. For just a moment, he lingered by Marius’s side, then hurried off.

* * *

They were nearly out of bullets. Even with caution, even with trying to let the soldiers waste theirs as they held back and waited for the perfect shot, even with Marius trying to pass his to others who he was sure would be better able to shoot than he was, they were running out. Their lives were no longer measured in years, perhaps not even in days. They were measured in lead and gunpower.

Marius didn’t want to die. Probably none of them wanted to die. That wouldn’t be enough to save them.

Then Gavroche, brave and foolish and too young to properly realize he was either, went over the top of the barricade to gather what he could. Then Gavroche was shot, and still he kept moving, still he tried to push on. Then he died in the middle of his song, never heeding the shouts for him to come back and not throw his life away.

Then it was only a matter of time.

They had made their barricade up from Paris itself, from chairs and tables and overturned carriages, from the very paving stones of the street. To save their city they had torn up their city, and now as they fell back, their city would not save them.

Marius nearly fell off the barricade as the soldiers stormed it. He had tried to watch Courfeyrac but in the confusion had lost sight of him and didn’t know whether he could find him again. If he tried, he might only lose precious time and might be killed himself. He had come to the barricade not caring whether he lived or died, but now that the matter was thrust so firmly before him, he knew there was only one answer to the question. He wanted to live. He wanted to survive to see another day. He might never see Cosette again, but she crossed his mind only vaguely, a fleeting image of beauty and loss.

But Courfeyrac was here. Courfeyrac was nearby, somewhere, and Marius didn’t think he could bear to see his friend’s corpse. Whatever might happen to him today, Cosette at least would still be alive. He didn’t know whether the same would be true of Courfeyrac.

Somewhere beside him, Joly was calling for help, pounding on a door. Somewhere beside him, Joly’s voice cut off. Marius couldn’t tell which of the shots he heard had been the fatal one. It didn’t matter. Joly was dead, and Jean Prouvaire was dead, and Bahorel was dead, and Combeferre was dead because he had stopped to help one of the wounded and hadn’t looked up in time. Even if he had, it might not have saved him.

Enjolras might be dead by now too. Impossible as that seemed, Marius couldn’t imagine him finding a way to escape this alive. He couldn’t imagine any of them escaping this alive.

“Marius!”

He jumped, gasping, and Courfeyrac grabbed his arm, pulling him further down the street. He held a pistol in his other hand, but it wouldn’t do much good; his sleeve was soaked through with blood, and that hand was shaking so hard it was a wonder he could hold onto the gun at all.

There wasn’t any time to ask where he had come from or how he was still alive. Marius couldn’t even think to ask how much longer he would live. Instead, he reached for the gun. “Give me that,” he said. “I’m all right, I’m not hurt.”

Courfeyrac shook his head. “I saw the way you were shooting up there,” he said. “You probably won’t even scare them.”

“You saw,” Marius echoed as Courfeyrac dragged him further down the road. He stumbled, and Marius tried to slide his shoulder under his friend’s arm, to support him a little. His face was ashen. Marius tried not to look at that bloody sleeve.

“Someone has to look out for you.” Courfeyrac stumbled again, and Marius caught him around the waist. There was a way out of this. There had to be. They couldn’t die here, not this way, not when he still didn’t understand what was running through his mind or why Courfeyrac clung to him so tightly.

Then Marius saw him.

The man who had seen the sniper was an unobtrusive one. He’d kept himself out of the way before making himself useful, then tucked himself away again afterward. There was something familiar about him, but Marius couldn’t determine what it was. It didn’t matter now. He could have been anyone at all, even Jondrette, and he would still have looked like a savior.

Marius made his way toward the man, bearing more of Courfeyrac’s weight every moment. “Please,” he gasped, uncertain if his voice could be heard over the chaos surrounding them. “He’s my friend.”

The pause lasted barely a second, but it felt much longer. In it, Marius could feel his racing heart, his pounding head, the dizzying panic that hadn’t so much set in as become a part of him. They were going to die, and it was no consolation at at least they would be side by side.

“With me,” the man said, and when they followed him, they descended into hell.

* * *

Later, when his mind was quiet again and he had heard the story related by Courfeyrac (who, despite having lost a great deal of blood, remembered it far better than he did), Marius would know they had not passed through hell after all but the Parisian sewers. The man who rescued them was a savior indeed, but not an angel. He was only Cosette’s father, who would never say why he was at the barricades in the first place.

And when they emerged, it was not to heaven but the Rue Plumet. Marius began to come back to himself a little then, for he recognized the street and the house where Cosette lived.

Nothing would convince him that Cosette was not a ministering angel. Even Courfeyrac would admit that was the simplest way to explain her.

Still, the Rue Plumet did seem like heaven, and when Marius woke in the middle of the night in a strange bed to find Cosette sitting beside him, illuminated only by a candle, he thought he must have died or must still be dreaming. His heart still beat too quickly, and when Cosette saw he was awake, she pressed a hand to his forehead. 

“I’m alive?” he whispered. He didn’t trust himself to speak any louder.

“You are,” she whispered back. “So is your friend.”

Courfeyrac. He was here. Marius sat up so quickly he felt dizzy, but even Cosette’s gentle pressure on his shoulders couldn’t convince him to lie down again. “I want to see him,” he said.

“You need to rest,” Cosette began, but Marius shook his head.

“He’s my friend.” He was something more than that, or something different, but Marius didn’t know what to call it. What was the word for someone you’d faced death beside? What was the word for someone you had all too eagerly kissed? Was there even a word for such a connection, or was this the first time in history it had happened?

Cosette still looked hesitant. “He needs to rest.”

Marius took both her hands in his and pressed them tightly. He must be feverish, he thought, for her hands felt so cool against his burning palms. “Please.”

She couldn’t deny him. Maybe it was his desperation. Maybe she just didn’t want to. Whatever the cause, she rose and led Marius to another room, and he followed her gratefully.

Courfeyrac lay on a narrower bed, his left arm swathed in bandages. He still looked pale, but his chest rose and fell steadily, and his pallor wasn’t as deathly as it had been before. He only looked ill, and Marius’s knees went weak with relief.

Cosette set a hand under his elbow quickly. “You should rest,” she murmured, but Marius shook his head.

“Could I talk to him?”

Cosette hesitated, but something must have told her his question wasn’t really a question at all. It wasn’t a demand; it was a plea. “If you both sleep afterward,” she said. 

Marius nodded. “I promise.”

It must have been enough to content her, for she let him enter the bedroom.

He had thought only to sit by Courfeyrac’s side for a moment and give himself a few minutes to be completely assured his friend really was alive and would remain so, but as soon as he sat on the bed, Courfeyrac’s eyes opened. It was just a crack, but enough for him to see by, and he smiled faintly.

“Marius?”

Courfeyrac’s voice was barely more than a whisper, but it was still more than Marius could manage. He couldn’t speak at all.

“You’re alive.”

Marius nodded.

“The others?”

Marius was silent, but when he saw horror twisting its way across Courfeyrac’s face, he knew he had to speak. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “I didn’t see much.” He’d seen too much, but he didn’t want to discuss any of it now. He didn’t know that he ever would.

“We’ll find out,” Courfeyrac mumbled. “Sooner or later.”

Marius would pray for later. He would pray for never, if he could. If he never found out, he could tell himself at least one other had made it out alive. Grantaire, probably. He hadn’t seen the man at the barricade. He’d likely gotten lost or distracted, or found some way he thought he could better spend his time.

Courfeyrac took his hand, pulling Marius from his thoughts. “She’s gone,” he mumbled.

Marius blinked. It was true. Cosette had left, and he suspected that meant she wanted to hint to him that his time was up. He muttered something about how he ought to go, but Courfeyrac’s grip was too strong for him to rise. He could only start up, and something in his motion drew Courfeyrac up as well. Even in the faint light, Marius could see his friend grimace as he put weight on his wounded arm, but before he could try to shove him back down, Courfeyrac had an arm around his shoulders and their lips were pressed together.

It was awkward and rushed, and Marius couldn’t tell what it meant. He couldn’t tell whether it meant anything at all except that they were both here and they both felt the same thrill in being together.

Marius drew back, glad for the darkness. He didn’t know what expression was on his face or whether he trusted it to be seen just yet. “You…” He didn’t even know what to say next.

“I suppose so,” Courfeyrac said. “Damned if I know why.” He lay down again, and it was all Marius could do not to lie down next to him. 

“We’ll have to be careful,” Marius said. “We can’t let anyone find out.”

Courfeyrac looked up at him. He seemed more than just tired. He was worn out, practically to the bone. “Would it matter, really?”

It would, Marius wanted to say, but at the same time, he knew that nothing at all mattered right now. Maybe it mattered they were alive, maybe it mattered he hadn’t lost Courfeyrac over a moment’s recklessness, but beyond that, what was there?

Marius bent and kissed his friend’s forehead. “Courfeyrac, rest,” he murmured. Whatever came next, they could face in the morning.

At least they knew they would have a morning to face.


End file.
